Rafael Quite, a photojournalist who works for the Europa Press Agency and collaborates with other media, but who is actually and is considered a ‘freelancer’, stars this week in the episode of the campaign #TalentMadrid that the Government Delegation in Madrid has been developing in social networks.
He started in photography in a self-taught way during the early years and later trained in schools such as EFTI, Man Ray, Too Many Flash or 5w Magazine. In addition to his work as a photojournalist and photographer of major sporting events, he teaches in cultural and youth centers, giving workshops on photography and visual culture.
In the conversation we had with him, Rafael Muy talks about two of his ongoing projects and those on display in Manzanares el Real.
“Secondary Actors”
The first of them, “Second Actors”, is an unfinished project, and he believes it will always be. “It is a way of making photography, sometimes casual, sometimes sought after, in which I emphasize our small space in the world, the little importance of the human being, that secondary, insignificant role that we have with respect to the environment that surrounds us.” He continues to work on it and currently has around a hundred edited photographs. It has been published and is now exposed.
“Pure Life”
The other project is called “Pura vida”. “It’s not really project,” he tells us. It is a very complex selection of 10 images among thousands “that I took during a three-year trip – between 2005 and 2008 – that I was fortunate to make with my roommate in a van from Spain to Southeast Asia”. “It’s very self-taught,” he adds, “a very free way to make photography that you often don’t have at work. It’s a very strong life experience and I wanted to expose it.”
“Thank you”
Finally, he tells us about another project, very personal. “Gracias,” which is titled, documents the experience of caring for his dependent father from December 2022 until he died on July 31, 2023. “I emphasize all that is dependence, the care of an elderly person with all his roller coaster emotions. You are having a good reception You are giving me many satisfactions. My father would be very happy,” he concludes.
Photography with social purpose also
His work is therefore focused on the development of reportages and documentary photography. Short-, medium- or long-term projects, aimed at showing or spreading realities of inequalities, injustices or, simply, stories nearby that raise emotions. He believes that photography should have a social as well as an aesthetic purpose.
The campaign #TalentMadrid of the Government Delegation
The Government Delegation has been running a campaign on social networks for weeks with the hashtag #TalentMadrid To support initiatives and people who live and/or develop their activity in the region, highlighting in very varied disciplines, artistic, sports, scientific or social, among others.
For the episodes broadcast so far, a long list of talents has already passed: the billiard club Madrid Escuela Nacional; the professor of Technology and writer of scientific books Javier Fernández Panadero; the researcher of the Higher Council of Scientific Research (CSIC), María Mittelbrunn; the champion of Cartomagic in 2022, Pepo Capel; the director and screenwriter Víctor Matellano; the sculptor Luis Berruti; the Baroque Orchestra of the Professional Conservatory of Music Arturo Soria, the researcher Lucía Fernández.
The content of this campaign can be followed in the profiles that the Government Delegation in the Community of Madrid has on social networks:
"X" : @DGobiernoMadrid
Instagram: @DGobiernoMadrid